A Visit With Niki

I asked Niki if she used Photoshop or Pagemaker to make the composite image on the left. Neither, she said, it was paper cut and paste and then color Xerox. Sometimes I forget that the world existed before computers.

Excuse me, Dr. Niki, now a PhD in Physics from American University. In all the years I have known Niki (1987-present), I never knew she was interested in photography. I guess we spent way too much time talking about signal processing, chaos theory, and neural networks. So when Dr. Chuck shows up from North Carolina, he says "let's go visit Niki", and as soon as we walk into the door, she's plopping down images and asking photography questions. And far be it from two male PhD photographer wannabes to deny a beautiful gal photo lessons. Especially when she understands optics, math, and perspective compression. It didn't take long for us to bring out the paper and pencil and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of various focal lengths for portrait photography.

Niki shoots Pulli. The mark of a good student is a tripod. Now we just have to get her a good tripod.

Pulli shoots Niki. No tripod, just lazy.

Pulli shoots Dr. Chuck: mechanical engineer, photographer, race car mechanic, vegetable cutter, and one time manager of North Carolina strippers. Okay, he was merely offered that job.

Dr. Chuck detests strobes so he grabs this natural light shot of Niki and her new baby Ian.

Unlike Dr. Chuck, I'm not opposed to strobes, so I grabbed this shot of Niki and Ian with her Canon.


Peggy entertains Ian while the nerds discuss optics.

An available light shot of Margaret. Truth be told, it was available light because I didn't have the strobe tied down to the hot shoe.


Before departing, Niki grabs a group shot.

These are just flatbed scans of the proof prints. PhotoCD scans of the original negs will be put up as soon as Niki sends me them. Hint, hint.